Tag Archives: life

I haven’t written on this blog in quite some time because I’ve been very, very busy. I gave birth to my first child a little under two months ago, and shortly after that lost my father, and it’s been a whirlwind since. I have a ton to write about regarding finances, but just haven’t found the time.

Money is top of mind right now as a new mom and as a daughter trying to help her mother navigate her own finances as a widow, all while processing a massive amount of grief and joy in such a short time. I’m an emotional mess and trying to hold it together for my son.

One thing that helps me hold it together is having a somewhat stable financial situation for myself. My goal of having $500k in savings/investments before having a child was hit and then some… I made it to a little over $600k before giving birth. Even though I don’t feel financially secure, I still feel better than I would if I had no or very little savings. I’ve been able to pay for my mother to stay in hotel and visit us, and am paying for my sister to fly across the country to meet her nephew. I’m even paying for my mother to get therapy because she needs it right now and her access to liquid capital is quite limited — I can write a thousand posts on that situation and may at some point (or a book) but in the meantime, my own financial story is ever shifting.

We still live in a one bedroom apartment rented for now $2400 a month (split 50/50.) I’m close to obtaining my first year RSUs which means that this year I will earn by far the most I’ve ever earned in my life (over $300k plus my husband’s consulting income of $80k), which feels good, although not as great as it could. I still feel lost in terms of how to create a stable life for myself and get to the point where I’m not afraid to spend money on big important purchases like buying a house. I’m also feeling guilty in knowing that the only way we can afford to buy is to go in with my husband’s mother who has about $1M in cash saved up apparently — due to her frugality and hatred of capitalism. We’re starting to look for a duplex or single family home with in law unit, where we could all live together — my husband, myself, my son, his mother and his father. I’m forcing myself to get over this feeling that living with his parents (and accepting the money to make buying possible) is a sign of personal failure–that I can’t afford to provide for my own family. But then I look at what we could afford to buy if we were to just use our own volatile income and it doesn’t look pretty, so I give up. I’ll take the feeling of failure and the guilt in order to provide a stable life for my child(ren.)

Speaking of child(ren), I’ve decided I really want to have three. I always wanted three, but it seemed like a bad idea–but since my father passed away I realized how important it is for me to have a sizable family. I’ll focus on having my second in a year and see how that goes first, of course–and since that means I’l be giving birth to my second at 37 chances are I won’t be able to have a third anyway–but I think I want to try. I may get my embryos frozen next summer ($$$$) in order to make it possible to have a third (and potentially to ensure that I can have a second.) My age is really hitting me smack in the face as being 35 and having kids not only means my biological clock is ticking and running out, but also that my father ran out of time entirely and my mother is an older grandmother and when my kids are in their teens she’ll be in her 80s, if she lives that long. And I’ll be in my 50s(!) — someone should have smacked me in the face when I was 20 and shared the little secret that it’s nice to have everyone be younger when your kids are growing up. The guilt I have that my father will never get to spend time with his grandson will never leave me. On a more positive note, I feel very committed to ensuring my son gets to spend time with his remaining grandparents, even my annoying, neurotic mother, and that means putting money and time behind getting us to the east coast to see her and helping her afford to visit us in between her summers at the pool and winters in her Florida condo… at. the pool.

Life is just hitting me so hard right now and I’m struggling a lot. I’m on extended disability for PPD and find myself crying every day and having some suicidal thoughts, though I’ve been through depression enough to know they’ll pass. I love my son, and find joy and meaning in being a mother. I don’t know how long that will last as he grows up and decides he disagrees with everything I say–but for now, as he starts to realize I’m his mom, and as we get this breastfeeding thing down, I feel a deep sense of things being right as he sleeps across my chest, and an urge to make a good life for him, to provide him with a family of siblings, and to love him more than anything in the world.

I’m so scared of going back to work. I’m scared my boss will hate me and already does since I’ve taken an extended leave due to the PPD. I’m scared every moment I request more time off I’m entitled to (or should be) and I’m scared I’ll go back to work FT and not be able to keep up because even before I had a child I struggled with my role and career. Now I really need the money and I’m going to do my best to hold it together and survive the next 3.5 years at least until I’ve collected the income from my stock and perhaps have had my second child and succeeded at hitting $1M in networth. I don’t know what that means anymore, but it’s still a goal that seems good to have. I won’t be able to track my networth cleanly once we buy house with my husband’s parents–but I’m now considering our going household networth to be $750k, and still want to see us cross that $1M threshold by the time I’m 38. I think, too, if I can have kid #2 at 37 then when I turn 38 we can decide to try for a third child…

Goals:

Before Child #1 Born: $500k in stocks/savings (done)
Before Child #2 Born: $1M in stocks/savings
Before Child #3 Born: $1M+ in stocks/savings + own $1.7M-$2M home with husband’s parents

Of course, this plan assumes I would be pregnant at age 39 and giving birth to my third child at 40. I’m not sure that’s possible or a good idea. But in order to have three kids, this really is the only way it would work “safely” as I’m supposed to wait 18 months between giving birth and getting pregnant again. I don’t have to, but it’s more risky if I don’t. My doctor said a year should be ok. So, I could try for the following…

(assuming I suddenly become very fertile — unlikely but this would be the best plan for actually having 3 kids…)

But that plan would be very, very hard with my career and networth goals. I just don’t want to regret not having the family I want because I was too focused on money. Even if the above schedule pushes out until I’m giving birth at 39 for kid #3, that’s probably better than 40 (and I should be more likely to get pregnant when I’m 38) — it’s still hard to plan since with pregnancy esp at this age I’m at higher risk for all sorts of issues, miscarriage, defects, etc… who knows if I’ll even make it to having a second kid. I don’t want to feel rushed into having kid #2, but I do think I’m going to start officially trying for my second after my son turns 1 year old. If I happen to get pregnant right away, I’ll take that as a sign I’m meant to keep trying for a larger family. If not, I’ll keep going until hopefully I get pregnant with my second. Who knows how long it will take–if I got lucky this time (with fertility meds) or if I can get pregnant again pretty quickly. The one thing I know now is I want to focus on getting healthy in the next year to set myself up for the best pregnancy possible, and hopefully not gain as much weight next time.

In short, I feel old and overwhelmed, but that’s life and that’s what it’s like to turn 35…

I’m not sure if it talents talent or natural ability to project manage and get shit done, but that seems to be one trait that can’t be learned (if you’re horrible at it) and the most important in any job. The few people who can get away with not being the most organized and being poor at communication are the rare idiot savants, those who are respected for their creative contributions despite other clear shortcomings.

We aren’t born to work, outside of hunting and gathering and building shelter so we don’t die, so all of these career tests and what you should be when you grow up aren’t telling the total truth — that we’re trying to identify some value-added contribution that we can do consistently well enough from post graduation through retirement. “Consistently well enough” isn’t an easy undertaking for anyone for 45 years. Continue reading →

With my somewhat aggressive savings plan, my networth has eeked over the $480k mark, leaving “just” $20k left for the remainder of the year to hit my annual and “before giving birth*” goal of $500k. (*still not pregnant, so it’s looking more and more likely that I’ll hit this goal.)

While I’m far from frugal, I started doing some longer term calculations and realizing that perhaps I’m saving too much of my paycheck (is there such a thing?) I’m not a Mustachian — I have no desire to “retire early” — and maybe I don’t need $200k a year (after inflation) in actual retirement because I hope to always be able to work (albeit in a different, lower paid and more meaningful job once I’ve saved enough.) Continue reading →

Removing myself from the equation, I ponder what persona would be successful in a role like my own. I seem to care far too much personally about everything I do, which renders my work occasionally high quality but too often belated. The quality, the “artistic merit” of the work is not valued – only its completion, it’s project management of other people playing their parts and getting their projects done faster and more effectively than anyone else, or at least making it seem that way while in reality surviving on little sleep to make sure everything gets done and no one has to ask twice regarding the whereabouts of a deliverable.

It’s the alienating daily experience of being an “NFP” in a strictly “NTJ” world… welcome to Silicon Valley, oh sensitive artistic one.

Everyone appears to be satisfied with this world, stressed, maybe, but focused, determined, and given those drawn to this industry are the types who always got A’s on their exams and submitted every last ounce of extra credit assignments possible, I feel like a complete outsider. I’ve never actually fit in anywhere, so the outsider role is at least my status quo. As I observe those in the world around me and age in the industry where I’m no longer the youngest in the room (now, far from it), I feel even further removed from the center of gravity here. I’m off kilter, wobbling about and hoping no one notices I’m slipping sideways, that is, until the inevitable face plant. Continue reading →

I was texting with my childhood friend. She lives across the country in a house that her now-husband bought. She is pregnant and due in a few months. She has a stable job in a public-service role that she loves, and she spends her free time with friends and traveling the world. I’m sure she’s not happy all the time– she had quite the traumatic childhood and has overcome a lot– but she seems content with life and stable enough to enjoy it.

Her and her husband are jointly making probably $60k-$70k a year, but they make it work. They can make it work because they live somewhere more affordable than here. Explaining to her that my concern du jour was that I have a job offer that pays $70k less than my current role just didn’t compute. It probably doesn’t with most of my readers too… Continue reading →

The best movies touch every audience member in a different way, but have a clear world picture of what they want to say. La La Land is one of those movies, and I highly recommend you see it (spoilers enclosed) — the film follows the lives of two dreamers – a young actress and jazz musician in Los Angeles who are chasing their dreams. The film starts out with the actress (Emma Stone) working at a coffee shop on a film lot and the jazz musician (Ryan Gosling) getting fired for playing unconventional jazz music he wrote at a restaurant gig after being warned not to by his boss. Then it follows their lives over the next five years through a love story that’s more focused on how hard it is to chase your dreams than it is on the love story itself. In the end everyone gets what they want, well, sort of – at least in terms of their careers.

For anyone who ever chased a dream or is chasing one right now, they can relate to the film in that context – how hard it is to chase a dream, and the hope that maybe some day it will all work out (and the reality that even when it does not everything works out even a fairytale ending is met with the reality that nothing always is perfect, and you always have to sacrifice to reach your dreams.) For those of us who are too afraid to chase our dreams, it gives us hope that maybe it’s not too late – maybe it just requires someone to nudge us along the way, whether that’s a tap-dancing romeo or a voice within. Of course, for every success story of dream following there are a million that never come to fruition. Continue reading →

2017 – how did you get here so quickly? Time continues to fly by, and although my bank account is looking healthier than it did a few years ago, I am still the same old person. 2017 already looks a bit shaky given our political climate (how on earth did Trump get elected president? So #unpresidented). Anyway, 2017, here are some things I want to accomplish in you — which sounds awkward but you are a year and therefore I’m not doing anything obscene by entering your cavernous orifices via January 1. Continue reading →

“I don’t understand this depression thing. You have a job, you have a husband, why are you depressed?” my mother asked, following up five minutes later by asking me if I’m ever going to get a job she can “explain to her friends” because “that would be nice.”

Over dinner, my sister, seven years my junior, was reminded by my mother how in high school she couldn’t write long papers like I could (she had a learning disability) and, yet again, I cringed as my sister was compared to me knowing full well what that does to her own psyche. Luckily she’s a strong chica, but she went through serious depression as well and deals with a mile-high pile of her own shit on a daily basis. We both do in our own ways.

Time is flying by so quickly. I’m coming up on my six month wedding anniversary. I’m 33. 30-fucking-three. Ovulation calculators remind me that if I get pregnant this spring my child will be born when I’m 34. I’m fully an adult now but I still flinch when my mother or father criticizes the choices I make and things I do. I try hard to not be as self absorbed as they are. I think daily of the ways I will not be like them when I have children of my own. I imagine how to be a little less myself when I’m a mother, how to hide the real me.

I never thought I would change, but I think in some ways I have. I’m still the same old miserable-at-life mess that I’ve always been. I can waste time like it was trash itself. I still am passionate about what’s right and justice and empathy and honesty. But as an adult, I care less about proving myself and more about adding value to society. I still hope one day the value I add will be recognized, and while I’ve given up long ago on being famous it was only in the last few years when I no longer coveted fame as the be-all-end-all goal in life. I began to develop a newfound appreciation of my anonymity, realizing I found happiness in the moments when I walked down the street alone in new cities where I knew no one and didn’t have to worry about running into a person who wanted to strike up a conversation.

Fiscally I no longer crave wealth in the way I once did. It’s not that I ever wanted to be extremely wealthy, I just wanted to be in the upper middle class with the ability to afford my shopping binges at discount designer outlets and Sephora.com, plus regular excursions to new cities and places around the world, and a home with a nice bathroom with a giant tub and beautiful gourmet kitchen to cook in and perhaps a backyard pool or community one where I could socialize with actual friends. But now I’m over that dream as well, to an extent. It would be nice to have a house, sure, but I don’t need one to be happy. It may even reduce my happiness because I find other than anonymity what keeps me content is freedom. I like to have the husband thing committed so I don’t feel totally lost, but I prefer freedom to being trapped in my life, especially in my area of residence. When life is a big blur the only thing separating one time period from another is when I’ve moved from one apartment to the next. This is how I tell time.

Lately, especially with what’s going on in the world of politics, I feel inspired to do more about fixing the world. I’m not sure exactly how, but I like to tell stories and I like to create and I like to help people, so there’s got to be something I can do professionally where I can pay the bills, put away a modest amount of savings AND give back to society. I’ve considered returning to journalism because I feel like I didn’t give it enough of a chance in my career — I was too young and afraid and didn’t understand the world enough to provide any useful commentary on much of anything. Unfortunately, pay in journalism is so low and to start over would be practically impossible if I could even find an opportunity. Typically that would require moving to a middle-of-nowhere market and as a married person that requires convincing my spouse to move as well… which won’t happen. But the thought is there.

When I have kids – if I can have kids – I know I need to settle down a bit and really pick a career that will consistently pay the bills. Maybe my current world is ok I just need to learn how to be more on top of things. Or I do something different. I don’t know. I will have to move if I want to try something new. Hubby is open to moving, though partial to particular regions where it always rains. I prefer the sun. I really don’t want to move anyway. But I will if I have to.

Life goes by so quickly. And when you step back and look back on all the crazy in the world your little piece of it doesn’t matter at all. Look at who we elected President. We elected a sociopath to the White House. Who knows what will happen in the next four years. Maybe my stocks will increase in value short term, maybe the entire market will crash. Who knows. I am a bit worried, but more so just tired of worrying. If I lose all my money, so what? It is scary, but it probably won’t all be gone. If it’s all gone, then there are bigger problems. I’m more concerned about civil war and nuclear holocausts and climate change and injustices and lack of access to education. I’m more concerned about other people than I am myself. I guess that’s what I mean about being a changed person. I’m tired of caring about myself. I want to care about other people… whether that be my children or the children of the world. I’m so tired and beaten down from working a job where the rewards are solely financial. I need a break and a breather to feel value on a deeper level. I’m still scared shitless but I’m also starting to break free of all my fears. Starting… is a start. Not letting my mother’s nagging get to me is a start. Not allowing that voice in my head that tells me I suck at everything when I clearly only suck at “this one thing I’m doing that I happen to be getting paid for right now aka my job.” No accepting that I am a failure on all levels, that I must be either GREAT and AMAZING and a WINNER or a total loser.

I really don’t want the rest of my life to be this. There has to be something more.

On one hand, moments of my youth feel like just yesterday. On the other, I do feel a very real sense of the time that has passed over the course of my life. I don’t feel old quite yet, but I definitely don’t feel young either. My friends all are having or already have children, fashions are reverting to what was popular when I was in elementary school (the revival of the choker brings on all the feels), and I’m somehow – despite my mental illness – ready to have children. I know it’s going to be very hard, but I feel surprisingly ready. Maybe I’m not logistically ready, but I feel ready from a maturity level, which is an odd thing for me to say, but as I acknowledge that many parents are not actually that mature, I have found confidence in my own future parenting skills.

If all goes to plan, I’ll be pregnant and possibly already with child at this time next year. I have a not-so-secret hope for twins, which is probably the worst thing to wish for, but I have always wanted twins since I was a child and with infertility treatments to help induce fertility (which I need anyway) the odds of having twins are much higher. We don’t have any history of twins in our families so it would be extremely unlikely in the event of a completely unaided conception. but giving what the infertility doc said about my ovaries, natural pregnancy without the help of at least medicine is extremely unlikely. And I’m not getting any younger. Continue reading →

It seems like every day since I turned three I’ve had a midlife crisis. I envy people who knew what they wanted to be since they were dressing up in the role for kindergarten Halloween, but I’m not one of those people. Our childhood shapes our hopes and dreams early on by how our parents reward or criticize us by even the slightest creasing of their eyebrow. I imagine in most families parents are happy with their kids doing fairly basic things — hitting the ball in a baseball game, coming home with a “B” on their report card, getting their first job. Other parents aren’t impressed by standard success metrics. Parents like mine expect more. They raise you to feel special and then your life is spent trying to be special or giving up and feeling let down. You officially have a parental-induced complex that even the best cognitive behavioral therapist can not eradicate.

Different cultures have different measures of success. While every family is unique, there is some truth to how particular groups fuck up their children in fairly standard ways. Asian parents teach their children that they must not feel special, only be better than everyone else, and being better than everyone else is not about innate intelligence or specialness but instead about working hard. Creativity is less valued – however, any talent that requires a lot of repetitive practice is considered high value (i.e. playing an instrument.) Jewish parents, meanwhile, put pressure on their children to be special and successful. Working hard is important but more important is some superhuman talent – we are the “chosen people” after all. Being good at something is not enough. We end up with such complex of hating ourselves while also desiring to be special that many of us develop biting senses of self-deprecating humor (Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Jon Stewart, Mel Brooks, Billy Crystal, the Marx Brothers, Sarah Silverman, Joan Rivers, Ben Stiller, Howard Stern, Adam Sandler, Larry David, Carl Reiner, George Burns, Milton Berle, Howie Mandel, et al.) There is a humor than one must have when they are incapable of achieving equal parts success and fame for their unique, novel contributions to society. Such complexes can be hilarious as comedy is the intersection of feeling bad for someone and relating to their situation just enough to laugh with them at the same time.

So. Here I am – this 32 year old Jewish girl who’s actually now a woman who lives in a one bedroom apartment with her new husband and a job which, despite paying well, is one where success is based on being practically a machine and not unique or special or creative or whatnot. Here I am, still dealing with the complexes my parents gave me and still feeling like life is meaningless if I don’t do something more special than save enough to retire on. I don’t exactly long for fame anymore – I used to want to be a famous actress but then I realized my face did not fare well on film or in any medium that would capture it from an angle other than slightly to the side and from above (not to mention my non-existent acting skills.) What’s changed, however, is that while I still want to create, I feel more comfortable with my ideas and my talents. I acknowledge now that most successful people weren’t successful from day one – they worked at it and they failed a lot and then they had a lucky break – and they certainly didn’t try to please someone else in order to achieve success. A lot of people took risks because that’s what their heart told them to do and for everyone that made it a few thousand didn’t or did to some extent but you never heard of them. There’s a heck of a lot of television writers in LA who you’d never recognize when you happen to be in line behind them at In-N-Out. But they get to write on a daily basis and get paid for it and their ideas come to life and that’s all sorts of cool. At the end of the day it’s just a job, like any other job, but I can’t help but feel like doing that would be a bit more fulfilling than waking up every morning to come up with a new way to promote the newest upgrade to business software.

With that, I signed up for a screenwriting class online that starts on Wednesday this week. I figure I’ll be a horrible screenwriter (dialogue is not my forte) but it could be fun to write a script even if it will undoubtedly suck. I have a lot to say about the world and people and the psychology of people and maybe writing is a way to accomplish that. Screenplays at least have a beginning, middle, and end, and can become more than just a self-published book that collects virtual dust on a Kindle shelf, if it even makes it that far. I look at the lists of comedic screenwriters and women are few and far between. In one list Lena Dunham was recognized at a top 10 comic screenwriter and Tina Fey is listed as well – but the majority on the list are men. (For the record I don’t find Tina Fey’s comedy very funny outside of old-school weekend update and Lena Dunham is too young/hipster for me and makes me feel like an old lady.) Jenji Kohan is listed as a comedic writer with a vag but she writes for television not film – not a bad thing, but still I’m looking for female comic screenwriters, not TV writers. Todd Phillips of the Hangover series has a dick, Adam McKay has a dick, Mike Judge has a dick, The Farrelly Brothers have two dicks, Seth MacFarlane (who, tangent, I saw singing karaoke in LA once and it was magical) has a dick, Wes Anderson has a dick I imagine he admires in the mirror nightly, and Judd Apatow has a dick that he uses to inspire his screenplays (40 Year Old Virgin, This is 40, Knocked Up.) Ok, so where are the female comedic screenplay writers?

Ok, so there are some. Here’s a list of female screenwriters (not all are comic screenwriters) and many of them have written well-loved films over the years. There are women writing in Hollywood – but just like in tech, women in leadership roles are few and far between. I’m not saying I’m destined to be the next great comic screenwriter (I’m not even funny) BUT there is a lack of comic roles for women to play and it would be quite satisfying to take a stab at resolving that.

Besides specific roles, the type of comedy women write and what men write is quite different. I watched Tina Fey’s “Whiskey Tango FoxTrot” and cringed at how dumb the movie was — while comedies written by men are creative in pushing the limits, everything in this film was just so cliche. It wasn’t funny. At. All. Amy Schumer is the hottest female comedian today – yet her movie Trainwreck was a trainwreck of a comedy. Her standup is ok and I appreciate her shtick, but there was nothing creative or original about her film. And, surprise, surprise, it wasn’t funny.

Then you have movies like Bridesmaids where women writers attempt to do the “Hangover” thing for the ladies — Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo gathered together some of the most popular female comedians and tried to capture the same spirit of the aforementioned film – yet, in the end, they got stuck at poop jokes and nothing as creative as a tiger showing up in their bathroom or ending up at Mike Tyson’s house. You have Melissa McCarthy’s annoying shtick which is hit-or-miss funny if you can forget she’s just doing the same thing she always does in every fucking movie … and Kristin Wiig being Kristin Wiig… and because it’s a female movie it has to be all feel good and let’s be friends forever bullshit bullshit bull.

The last funny-ish film I watched featuring women was “How to be Single” – which was still not that funny but at least it had its moments. Ok, it was god awful horrible but for an airplane movie I did have a few LOL moments when I hoped the people in the seats next to me were really asleep. The movie was written by Abby Kohn (who wrote one other romantic comedy), Marc Silverstein (the dick) and Dana Fox (who seems to cowrite for male comedy writers.) Really, that movie was only funny because of Rebel Wilson, who is almost as annoying as Melissa McCarthy but somehow her shtick is charming and believable which makes her quips laugh-worthy. Without Wilson, the movie would have been god awful.

So where does this get me? I doubt I’ll be writing the script for the next “Room” anytime soon, but perhaps I’d have a shot at writing comedy. There’s a huge gap in screenplays featuring women that are comic but not flat-out dumb or traditional rom-coms written by dicks and the people attached to them. It seems like a good mission to have to write one hilarious movie that isn’t so damn cliche and instead can be like Woody Allen-style funny from a female’s perspective and sans all the child molesting / marry your step daughter stuff because even though I want gender equality in Hollywood I have to draw the line somewhere.

It was just yesterday when my boss told me he doesn’t want to fire me only he doesn’t want me to be in charge of things like I have been because I suck at being in charge of things and to his surprise I wasn’t upset or pushing back on this I just nodded and agreed and confirmed that he wanted me to stay as long as I focus on the things I do best and completely stop trying to do the many things I can’t do well. He gave me the option to leave if I want but I don’t really want to leave, I want to just focus on being good at something and then being able to leave work at a reasonable time to take classes and try to not be too tired to write. Now that the wedding is over and I’m not pregnant yet I have time. Time to write my first “will never be seen by anyone and will be horrible” screenplay and learn a thing or two about if I have a chance at ever writing for a living. I have a secret little fantasy of this working out extremely well and then going for my MFA at UCLA in screenwriting and getting really good at writing and writing all these hilarious scripts that sell well at the box office but also give female actors some real funny material to cut their teeth on versus the standard bullshit comedy that is written for women.

I might lose my job but I think the best thing to do now is to try to keep it, do my best, limit my responsibilities, do a good job, and give myself a set number of projects to accomplish in a given week so I feel productive, look productive, am productive, and can go home and have a life and focus on my writing / creative projects. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is but at the moment I’m feeling hopeful and like maybe I can make this work. I’m too old to be letting life pass me by. I spent my entire childhood and early adult life dedicated to being creative and suddenly as an adult I cut this huge part of me out of my life. If anything, even if this is just a hobby, maybe I’ll find myself again.

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About Me

The anti-minimalist: I'm the absolute worst with money. I have a shopping addiction. That's exactly why this blog exists. HECC is not a typical personal finance blog. I started it in 2007 to hold myself accountable for binge spending, a dropping networth, and lack of overall fiscal literacy. 10 years later, had achieved a networth of over $500k. Now my goal is to hit $1M by 40. Recently married and with my first kid on the way, things are about to get... interesting. I write about the intersection of mental health and money, spending & investing, and millennial personal finance.